


Not No, Just Maybe

by Alex_deMorra (Ergo_Sum)



Series: Fence Sitter [10]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Capoeira, Foster Care, Getting Together, M/M, coming back home
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-08
Updated: 2016-12-08
Packaged: 2018-09-07 08:51:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8791282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ergo_Sum/pseuds/Alex_deMorra
Summary: Chapter 10: Fence SitterLuis, the newest foster child taken in by Mestre Lagarto and Tia Sabina, needs legal assistance and child advocacy, which Micah will provide. His start with the family coincides with Mother's Day -- the day that those who moved away comes back to visit first for class and then for a weekend long celebration. Among those returning to town is Dante Te Waero, Micah's long-time crush and sometimes hook-up. But something surprising happens. It turns out that Micah's feelings may not have been as one-sided as he thought.





	1. Chapter 1

The new kid Luis sat cross-armed and sullen between _Mestre_ and his wife, the auntie to our tribe, _Tia Sabina_. Moving from the desk to the pair of couches stuffed into the corner of my office, the would sometimes help a visitor relax a bit, possibly enough to start answering some basic questions. But like most kids who found their orbit around _Mestre,_ this particular young man, who was probably not yet a teenager, opted to remain unyielding and silent.

I wasn’t surprised. That was usually it went until the kid figured out that _Tia’s_ place didn’t come with a swinging door.

Always _Tia’s_ — or sometimes, _Tia Sabina’s —_ never _Mestre’s_. Because in that house, she was more important than the queen. Period. He was tough, she was tougher. He was smart, she was smarter. He was short, she was shorter. And except for that one time when he told the first-gen foster boys that they didn’t need to learn how to cook, and that other time when he suggested that the extra toilet should be installed at the end of the hallway — as in not in a room at all, but _in_ the hallway — he undeniably had her back.

In return, she had the back of every single foster kid (and many of their friends) who landed on the doorstep, all of whom arrived in in some combination of angry, depressed, confused, lonely, betrayed, abused, ignored, abandoned, hungry, anxious, scared, and illiterate. Not onewould get a free pass for having endured past trials. Instead, they got the chance to turn into someone they could be proud of, whether they wanted that chance or not.

“So, here’s the deal,” I said. Luis ruched up his lips into a part snarl, part pout, part frown, and lots of parts with lots of little emotions that crossed his face faster than I could understand their meaning. These were just as quickly covered up with something else, his own brand of mask, to render him impermeable.

Which meant he was scared shitless.

In his world, if I wanted something, it wouldn’t be for his benefit. All he had was to stay in control and to stay in control, he couldn’t give anything away — not his name, not his age, not his story, nothing.

I could tell him a million times right now that I worked for him, that I could be trusted, that I’d been through something like what he had, and he still wouldn’t believe me. That’s why I always started our first conversation with _here’s the deal_ and then gave them something — anything — that I knew would be out of their normal.

In this case, this:

I picked up his file and kept it closed. I was careful to hold it to the side and show him that I’d sealed it. “I haven’t read this yet.” Luis stiffened, his eyes tracked a path between my hand and my face. He said nothing.

It was okay. I could wait. He’d say something when he was ready.

“You’re not the first kid I’ve met with who had just been told they had to go live with this new couple they’d never seen before.” I clarified, “You know, going to live with this new couple you’d never seen before this morning. You don’t know who they are, what they’re like, how much they are going to change your life. Right?”

Luis remained still even with the flicker of _something_ I saw in him. _Tia Sabina_ saw it too, and raised an eyebrow, first to Luis and then to _Mestre_.

I put the file on the table between us and kept my hand on top of it. It was a little dramatic but drama worked. “This is your file, Luis. It’s thick. That means your life has been eventful. And if something is in this file, it isn’t going to be about something nice. If something is in here, it might be about the things that you’ve done — maybe things done to you — maybe things you’ve gotten involved in. _But_ ,” I said, emphasizing that last word and then pausing, because I wanted his complete attention, even if he played like he wasn’t giving it to me, “there are two things I want to tell you that are going to be more important than anything else. You ready?”

Luis pressed his lips together. That was as close to _yes_ as I was going to get.

“The first thing you need to know is that you are not your file. This,” and I picked up the file again, “is full of facts, witness statements, referrals, reports. They aren’t even the things that happened to you. It is a representation of part of your life, captured in the best way that people knew how to do at the time. That’s not _you_. Got it?”

I put the file back down again. His eyes followed it.

“The second thing. I haven’t read it yet.” Luis’ eyes flew open. It was a split second before he schooled them again. I give him another pause to allow his surprise to diminish. “I’m not going read your file without you. We’re going to do it together and we’re not going to do it today.”

Luis was wound tight, his leg vibrated, his constant stare, which had been boring into me, shifted to the corner of the room.

I continued, “You wanna know why?”

Now I waited for as long as it took for him to respond. _Mestre_ and _Tia_ have been through this with me at least a dozen times. It was so much easier with them here than on other cases when I was by myself. I couldn’t just sit there and expect something to happen. That’s not how it worked. I had to hold the space in a different way. It felt like Luis was on the top of a building and the three of us were on the ground holding the net. As long as he stayed up there, we had to stay super conscious of him, of us and of anything that would stop him from taking the leap.

The longest I ever had to wait was with Beto, who is currently the oldest kid at _Tia’s_. That was a long ass time. At the time, I had a clock that went _tick_ to each second. One hundred and eighty _ticks_ was an eternity for a kid who stared into space while three adults were practically in your face waiting for an answer. He told me later that it felt like even that single word was like asking him to hang himself.

Beto took three minutes.

Luis took one.

In that minute, he looked around the room, down at his borrowed shoes, at the poster of polar bears I hung in my office, anywhere but us. He sucked his bottom lip into his mouth and looked up at me and quickly back down at his lap.

_Mestre_ could still read these signs better than me. Of course, he could. He was a _Mestre_ not just because he could teach the traditions of capoeira and of the politics involved from then to now. Not just because he was a musician, a performer, a comedian, a disciplinarian, an organizer, a first responder, but because as the father of the community, the magnet who pulled us all together, he knew people. Most importantly, he knew what people were saying when they weren’t saying anything at all. And if anyone had a chance at pulling anyone out of the places they were stuck, my money was on him.

Still, some of his skills rubbed off on me, and I figured that Luis found his way to answer me in the best way he could.

“Because, I know what you’re about to go through,” I said, speaking slowly, letting the thoughts settle in, letting him silently acknowledge me before I went on. “When I was your age, I was forced to share my secrets to a room full of people I didn’t know. The jury was the only group of people who needed to know but they made me tell everyone. And after that, it seemed like whenever someone looked at me, I never knew if they were in that room or if they knew my secrets. It changed who I was in the world.”

“That was such a big deal to me. So, when it was my time to figure out what I wanted to do with my life, I decided that I wanted to help kids that were in my position. I wanted to find a way of protecting them more. Specifically through the legal process.”

“Luis,” I said and leaned a little bit more forward. He still chewed on his lip but he held my gaze this time. “I’m here to do all the things for you that weren’t done to protect me. And to do that, it helps if you trust me. But, it’s going to be hard for you to trust me if you think I have all of this information about you that you haven’t told me about. So, today, we’re just going to be introduced to each other. You get to know what I look like. I get to know what you look like. Then next time, we’ll start for real.”

I leaned back to give him space. I spoke more lightly when I said, “In the meantime, _Tia Sabina_ is going to be hard at work feeding you.”

He might have twitched a lip.

_Mestre_ copied Luis’ cross-armed posture and asked, “We’re going to see you tomorrow morning, _Urso Polar_?” He wasn’t actually asking me if I was going to be there. He knew I would be. This was a show for Luis.

“Definitely.”

“ _Boa_ ,” said _Mestre_ , he stood up and then he said, “you’re going to teach _os_ _pequeninos_ this week.”

Luis jerked his head over and asked, “ _¿N_ _o significa las pequeñas?_ ” His voice hadn’t yet dropped but it was graveled and husky, as if he were permanent need of water.

_Mestre_ raised his eyebrows in mock surprise, “Would you look at that _Urso Polar_? He speaks!” Then he turned to the kid. “ _No, quise decir <<_ _os_ _pequeninos >>,” Mestre _explained. _“Hablando portugués debe ser fácil para usted. Es como nuestro propio lenguaje secreto. Incluso el tipo blanco lo sabe._ ”

Who knew the thing that could cause Luis to crack a smile would be in telling him that since the white guy could learn Portuguese than it should be easy for him. 

Like anyone else who led capoeira, I had to learn how to flip word-by-word from Spanish into Portuguese and back again, even if I was the only _blanquito_ in the group. I was the one whose parents had spoken English at home, and the one who, no matter how much help was given to help me with either of my accents, was spotty with them at best and tended to criss-cross the language with the sound, at times even sounding French or Irish or something completely made-up in the moment. All it would take was _Tia Sabina_ giving me a little pat on the cheek (as if to say _bless_ ) to let me know that I hadn’t killed it as much as I had mangled a particular set of words. Hopefully, I wouldn’t do so now.  “ _Sim, claro. Como está o meu amigo Raul? Ele vai ficar bem para nos acompanhar?_ ”

I turned to Raul to say, “I just asked him whether my little pal Raul is going to be there. Have you met the other kids yet?”

_Tia_ answered, “ _Polar,_ ” She shortened my name to _pool-ahr_ , which, by now, is what almost everyone else did too. “They are at school.” She might as well have added _you ninny_.

“Oh right. When they get home then. There’s the oldest — Beto — and the youngest — Raul — and between them is Pete, Stella, Lina…who am I missing?”

Tia answered, “The two around Luis’ age: Ed and K’von.”

“Why do they keep calling you that?” asked Luis.

“ _Urso Polar?_ That’s my nickname — polar bear.”

He leveled me with a look that could have said _what the hell kind of nickname is that?_ Instead, he just asked, “Why?”

“I didn’t come up with it. _Mestre_ did. But when you figure it out, _you_ should tell _me_ what it means ‘cause I still don’t know.” Luis shot me a quizzical look out of the side of his eye and strolled towards the door to leave.

That name has meant so many different things to me. At first, I went through long periods of feeling embarrassed about it. First off, it was one of those obvious and unintended things that labeled me as the token white guy, as if that weren’t obvious enough. 

Then, someone ‘gave’ me the matching theme song- Ice Ice Baby and, of course, they thought it was hilarious. Like they thought I was trying to be cool but everyone knew that I wasn’t. Someone broke into song and I wanted to die. It took me a while to figure out that it wasn’t meant to be cruel. That giving me shit was their way of accepting me, that me not giving them shit back was confusing to them, and that eventually, they were totally happy with me being this quiet kid who hung around even though he was always a bit different.

The initial reason _Mestre_ gave me the name: to learn how to thrive in a hostile environment. There were times that I borrowed his belief in me. If he gave me a name that meant that he thought I could be tough, maybe I actually could.

That _maybe_ helped.

I got through that week. That month. That semester. I got emancipated, earned my degree, passed the bar, became a child advocate. My environment may not feel hostile anymore but it is to these kids. Every time I think I’ve put my past behind me, the feelings I carried around, the ones that had dulled to almost nothing, sharpened the instant I met someone like Luis or Corey or Stella or Pete. 

All it took was that first look, the one of universal wariness, the one that said all the trust had been shaken out of them, to remind me what it felt like when someone fought for me. That made it easier to step up. I could fight for them in a way that I could never fight for myself. I knew where it came from. It started when _Mestre_ asked me, “What kind of polar bear are you going to be? Now that you know how to survive, are you going to be the kind of bear that eats their young or the kind who protects them?”

He could have named me _cheleira_ (kettle) or _anta_ (tapir) or any number of things and he probably could have figured out how to find a different set of words to make the same point.

_Mestre_ stayed back after the door closed behind Luis and _Tia_ walked out of the office. “So,” I asked, “what do you think of him?”

He was best part of a foot shorter than me but, as he stood on higher ground, we could see eye to eye. “He’s a tough guy. His respect won’t come easy,” he said it as if that wasn’t the case with all of them. His arms were crossed and his gaze past the door they just walked out of.This devilish grin appeared on his face. “You know why it takes so long to find the name, _Polar_?”

I shook my head, “No idea.”

“Because if I didn’t, at least eight out of ten of my kids would be named _Merdinha,”_ he joked. I knew what he meant and with eight out of ten, he was being generous. We were all little shits at one time or another. I didn’t know how he did it.

Still smiling, I said, “So that’s what took so long with me. And for the longest time, I didn’t think you cared. You could have just called me _Merdinha._ It totally fit.”

More seriously he said, “Not you. These others, the ones that you meet, they have street smarts. They were willing to stand up for themselves, to fight back, they just needed to learn how. But you, _Polar_ , you had no sense for it. Performing? _Sim_. Defending?  _Não_. All the time, you thought you just had to take it. That…” he said, wagging at his finger at me, “was the hardest. I can handle Luis. You?” His finger moved for the direction of my nose to the growing patches of gray at his temple, “ _Você me deu esses cabelos grisalhos_.”

_“Desculpa, Mestre.”_ I might have said I was sorry but there was part of me that thought it was a small honor to have given him some of that gray hair.

He waved off my apology. “ _Este fim de semana é Dia das Mães. Não se esqueça._ ”

I wouldn’t forget Mother’s Day. It was as at least as big as Christmas, if not bigger, and because almost everyone who was out of town came back for the weekend, the party started after our _roda_ on Saturday and didn’t end until late the next day. 

Another thought hit me, “What about Luis?”

“What _about_ Luis?”

“Are you going to put him to work?”

The sound that came out of _Mestre_ was halfway between a snort and a hiss. “Maybe. If he finds someone he wants to impress,” he said and gave me a quick nod on the way out the door.


	2. Chapter 2

First, it was my nerves, and then it was my skin. By the time I looked up and saw him, I wasn’t surprised at all —Dante Te Waero. As unassuming as he was, you’d never know it by the way he entered a room. For one thing, the doorway had barely enough room for his shoulders. 

Of course, he would be here. It was Mother’s Day —  _Dia das Mães_. His mother stayed in  São  Paulo but the man came to _Tia’s_ for the actual day. Why would this year be any different? 

While to me, in my head, he was always Dante, in this room, he less Dante and more _Palhaço_ — jokester or trickster — though either name was fair game. His appearance caused a small roar amongst the old timers who crowded around him.  There were hugs and kisses, shouted greetings and friendly insults, as one did, about how their _Palhaço_ fattened up (not one ounce), got so gray (not one hair), and how his absence was hardly noticed (all the time and by all of us) while the younger, newer set hovered, with no idea what to do with themselves, and wondered who this guy was, and what must he have done to have deserved this reception.

I looked on from the far side of the room with fire in my gut, aware that his eyes sought mine. We’d catch up later.

“ _Urso Polar?_ ” asked Raul, his earnest, big-eyes poked through his too-long, inky hair, and he hopped from foot to foot, my white pants pinched in his tiny hand, oblivious to the scene just inside the doorway, “I gotta go.” Raul was the _Mestre’s_ youngest foster kid: undocumented, (despite having been born here), an only child (we think), five years old (maybe). Some months ago, I walked up the hill to my office one morning to find this child sat on the stoop, wrapped in blankets, holding a slightly nibbled pink _concha_ in both hands. He had been dropped off by someone — he didn’t know their name — who left a note advising of a recently deported (and unreachable) father.

For once, it was me who called _Mestre_ , not the other way around. And regardless of who did what, Raul fit in from the beginning, even if he tended to look to the horizon for a familiar face or how he never wanted to be left alone— even go to the bathroom. We couldn’t do much about the former but everyone in this group — all of the uncles, aunties, and cousins who had earned nicknames from _Mestre_ over the years — stepped in to help with the latter. Raul didn’t want to be alone? Raul wasn’t going to be alone. Full stop. No question. 

“He’s adopted you, _mijo_ ,” joked _Diretor_ (aka Beatrix, aka Bea, aka one of the handful of women raised in the household). Her eyes followed Raul, twinkling with gentle humor. Bea wasn’t the type to wear a wistful emotion. She was more comfortable with the ones that were fierce. And _Amante_ (aka Marky) caught it, too. For the first time since I’d known him, that look wasn’t going to run him off. 

In the meantime, Raul and I shuffled along, him as the engine and me as his caboose, down the long side of the wall, around the corner and into the corridor, entered the men’s bathroom on the left, where I would guard the outside of his stall after he locked the door and sang  _La rana cantaba debajo del agua_ and all of its syllables (most ended in “ah”) in ever increasing speeds while he did his business. He continued his song as he redressed, unlocked the stall, came out, reached high up into the sink to wash his hands, skipped out the door, which he knew I would hold for him, down the hall, back into the room and to the section with the other  _pequeninos_ , where _O Diretor_ and I led them through a series of warm-ups and drills.

The rest of the class started as well. Luis was in the first row, just behind _Colher_ (aka Júnior), who would have been positioned there so that it looked like he was helping to lead the class, but in reality, was there for the new guy. Just like _Amante_ was positioned for him when he was the new guy and _Palhaço_ was for me when I was the new guy.

As always, the drills started with the _ginga_ — the first and most basic move, which starts in a lunge with both legs bent. The arms go with the legs. If the left leg is back, the left arm is bent, blocking the face. With a step to the side, arms and legs change places. After that, the _esquivas,_ different versions of a squat position used for blocking. Then the _meia-lua’s_ , different kicks — half moon to the front ( _de frente_ ), roundhouse to the back with hands on the ground ( _de compasso_ ). There were more kicks: _queixada_ (if a kick were a backhanded slap to the face), _bencao_ (knee up, snap kick to the front, knee back). The kicks, the blocks, the attacks, always starting and ending with the _ginga_.

Experienced students practiced the _armada_ (another type of kick) _and macaco_ (back flip with hands) while the beginners worked their _negativa_ (a way to get low to the ground in defense) and tried not to get caught checking out the acrobatics of more advanced students. Bea and I stayed with the littlest students where each would run up to the pair of us so that we’d catch them, flip them, and set them back on their feet before they took their place again at the end of the line. 

_Mestre_ scanned the room to figure out which of the people here for the weekend had kept up with their practice and which had not. The latter would become an opportunity that couldn’t be passed up when we came back together as a single group. “ _Estilete_ (aka Dominic), you use to lead the rest of the class to help them learn the _aú_. Show us how good you are.” Then _Estilete_  sucked in his growing beer gut while he fumbled through a series of cartwheels that went in anything but a straight line and left him a lot more winded than he would have been had he kept up. Thus, he provided the tribe with one more point of entertainment that would surely last beyond this afternoon.

Finally, it was time for the _roda_ , to make the place where the play happened. _Colher_ stayed just outside the circle of people to stay with Luis. I could tell by watching the pointing of fingers and shapes of hands that _Colher_ had explained the instruments — how the long, buzzy, twangy _berimbau_ was the soul of capoeira. Next in importance, the _atabaque_ , the Afro-Cuban drum made of Jacaranda wood, and how it creates the beats and steps for the game. Then, how the _pandeiro_ , though similar to the tambourine, has a unique pitch and jingle. Finally, the clapping in triplets and the songs with their meanings, and anything else Luis could think of to ask.

Bea and I stayed with the _pequeninos,_ who were first in the roda and needed some prompting to challenge each other and to make sure they were inside in pairs, not to dally after someone had challenged their opponent. More often than not, their version of the dance involved _ginga, ginga, ginga, ginga, ginga, ginga_ , and a kick, maybe an _au_ , hopefully something they just learned but, more often than not, it wouldn’t be until they left the _roda_ that they remembered all the cool moves they wanted to try out on each other. They looked at me or Bea forlornly in a futile plea to be able to go back in. 

After the _pequeninos_ , came the older kids and adults, the ones that were either inexperienced or out of practice. This week, Luis would watch, next week, he’d get in there. And for his first time, he’d freak out and think that it was the end of the world because he barely knew what he was doing. He’d be mad at himself afterwards and wouldn’t get over the feeling for weeks, regardless of whether the lot of us told him we’d done the same thing. 

The speed and energy of the _roda_ continued to build as the less experience transferred out and the more experienced hopped in, bringing an increase of the complexity of moves, faster music, louder clapping. We were getting near the end. _Amante_ challenged _Abrutre_. After a few minutes, I kicked out _Abrutre_ in order to play with _Amante,_ whom I hadn’t seen in ages, only to have him kicked out by _Palhaço_ , who bounded in and landed in front of me with a wide grin and a dare to come after him, “ _Me mostre o que você tem, Urso Polar,”_ the words tumbled off his tongue and into my ears like a siren’s song. 

He was one who would shuck his shirt fifteen minutes into class. Perhaps I shouldn’t have placed so much attention on the vein that ran from the inside of his shoulder to the bend in his elbow had become more pronounced the longer that class went on. Or on how the long strands of hair from the bottom of his ponytail stuck to his back with each _aú_ and how his sweat falls in drips through the curves and ridges of his torso before disappearing into the stretchy white fabric at his waistband and — good lord, he was a beautiful man.

We started to play. I hardly notice what I’m doing because I didn’t need to think for my body to move. It was so easy — his push to my pull. But he knew things. Moves I hadn’t seen before that he may have learned from groups in the Bay Area, where he went to school, or Brazil, where he’d spend some summers or, more recently, stay with his mom while he did for his graduate program.

He surprised me with a tricked out scorpion kick and with _armada dupla_ that looked like it was going to land him on his head. And didn’t. I had better technique but he was crafty, and that won, hands down, every time. When we were younger, there might have been accidental slaps, thuds, thumps and bruises but not now.

We had to go faster.

A _ginga_ went right into an _armada_ , I dropped for an _esquiva_ in response straight up to my hands for a _renato_. He came back with a _batat_ _ã_ _o_. I came back with a _marquinhos_ that stopped an inch before impact. Few in the group would be able to tell which move was which, just that we did the kind of flips and tricks that would have a newcomer like Luis have to pick his jaw up off the floor.

I kicked, he blocked. A feint. An attack. A defense. A dance. A play. The hook of his _gancho_ barely made contact with my _meia lua de compasso duple_.

Maybe we were showing off.

Just a little.

The faster we went, the less time we had touching the ground. When we did, we were more often on our hands than our feet. No one else broke in to challenge him so we continued with our flips and kicks and ducks and weaves. The music, the clapping, the singing lifted us up, urged us on. _More, more_ it said. The _berimbau_ twanged into my muscles, the _pandeiro_ to my tendons, the _atabaque_ to my bones, the clapping to my heart.

Whether we were on a shellacked gym floor or cement or packed dirt, whether it was today or a two hundred years ago, when dancing meant finding an ounce of freedom before we would wake without it the next day, we did it to remind ourselves to seek out our destiny, to fulfill it completely, absolutely, resolutely — whatever it is. This dance was life for those who could only come once a year as much as it was for Luis, who would hopefully get this feeling under his skin that would help to pull him out of wherever he was so that he could get to wherever he was going.

Strands of horsehair broke free from the bow that beat hard and fast against the string of the _berimbau_. Over the past half an hour, the energy, the music, the spirit built up and up and up until the signal came to end the circle: _twang-twang-twang-twang-twang_. Then again to stop the music. The _jogo de capoeira —_ the game of _capoeira_ — was over for today.

_Palhaço_ fell into me and into the hug he didn’t give me earlier. My hand stuttered across his sweat-slicked skin, the lower part of my face planted at his neck and, later, when I licked my upper lip, it tasted like the ocean. He pulled me closer, his bronzed skin closer to terra cotta after that workout, whereas mine pinked up like the color of seashells that dotted the white sandy beaches not so far from here. “You’ll be at _Tia’s_ later?” he asked, his arm rested across the back of my neck, his voice low enough so that only I could hear it. His lips brushed across my ear. It was so subtle that, as soon as we separated, I questioned whether it had actually happened.

“You know it,” I said. It was on the tip of my tongue to ask if he was visiting alone when I caught Luis ducking his head like he hadn’t been watching us. There was a fine line between making someone feel welcome and making them feel overwhelmed but one look at Luis told me the line hadn’t even been approached yet. “It’s his first class.”

“He knows how to play it cool,” Dante acknowledged. He moved off so that we stood side by side to watch the room. The few people who didn’t know how to get to _Tia’s_ got instructions or worked out rides. Others gave salutes or waves to indicate they’d see us over there. “Not like you. Not back then.”

“What? I don’t remember doing anything that weird.”

“Man, it seemed like you wanted to crawl out of your own skin. You were radiating…” he shook his head, not out of turning anything away, more like because he couldn’t figure it out, “something.”

“You don’t think Luis wants to?”

“He might but I don’t know that by looking at him, do I?”

“Huh. I’ve always been told that I don’t give anything away.”

He bumped me with his side, “Just because you’re easy to read doesn’t mean you’re easy to figure out”.

“That implies you’ve been trying to figure me out.”

“Ha. Like you didn’t know it,” Dante confided. 

But I didn’t. Really. This was news to me. “What? Since when?” The room was almost empty, it was my job to lock up, his job to get back to the house to set up. My heart sped up. His eyes dilated. We just stood there like that.

I wanted to kiss him.

I wanted him to kiss me.

Anything to get us unfrozen when it was so, so obvious that we both wanted something to happen. 

_“Palhaço,_ come on!” yelled _Camaleao_ as he whipped around the corner of the door, saw us, and then said sheepishly, “Whoa. Sorry. Didn’t know I was interrupting.” He backed out, presumably to wait on the other side of the door.

I cleared my throat, chuckling, and said, “Uh, maybe we should continue this later?”

He laced his hand in mine just long enough to say, “Count on it.” After he left, the traces of the ensuing conversation were unmistakable in the sense that one guy was giving another one shit and the other one gave zero fucks about being on the receiving end.

Once the room was clean and the door locked, after I’d handed in the room key and made my way outside, I allowed myself to think that really dangerous thought. The one that had so far led me into situations in which my heart would get smashed to pieces. The one that I had, so far, kept away from this group. The one I had never, ever dared to think about when it came to him: _Maybe._


	3. Chapter 3

“Seriously, I can’t read that book one more time. Pick something else,” complained Beto, who had volunteered somewhat heroically (which had nothing to do with the possibility of getting driving lessons) to take on nap time reading for Raul, Stella, and Pete, who lived here, well as Nico and Andi, who didn’t. 

Raul repeated, “This one,” and pushed the spine of the book back toward Beto, who wanted nothing more than to put it down (possibly out of its misery) and move on to something else, anything else, for example, Chew, his latest comic, which was way too old for these kids. Having clocked an adult, he simultaneously pushed his comic off to the side (as if he never considered it for his next reading selection) and pleaded with me using big his eyes for me to take over. That alone told me which book it was. 

It was the one Raul got for Christmas — the tall one with a green hardcover with a picture of a scene that contained a pink and white awning, a kid leaning halfway through the window, planters of purple flowers, and a pig running down the sidewalk. Other households watched the movie Tangled on an infinite loop. This one read The Runaway Piggy.

Pete was already sprawled out on his belly, one knee bent, one arm tucked under a Nemo pillow, sound asleep. Andi was propped up along the back wall with her own book and had three others at the ready, stacked right next to her. Nico read over Andi’s shoulder and slumped along the wall ever so slightly away from her with his eyelids floating shut just in time for him to snap them open again because, for whatever reason, there was no way that he would fall asleep before Andi. And Stella? She’d do whatever Raul did. “I got this,” I told Beto. He wasted no time. He handed me the book, gave me a thumbs up and tiptoed out of the room and over to the right towards the garage where the X-box marathon had already started. 

Raul and Stella followed me over to the ancient, blue and brown corduroy beanbag that was impossible to sit on. I reclined and hoped for the best. Raul climbed up the side of my chest and settled into my shoulder while Stella crawled over the top of both of us to rest her chin on my head and curl the rest of her body into a shape like a comma so that her knees rested by my ears. Her hands amused themselves with my hair well before the first refrain of the book came up, "Chase me! Chase me down the street! But this is one piggy you won't get to eat! I ran away from the others and I'll run away from you!" 

Raul’s lips moved along with the words as I said them aloud. If I skipped one, he smacked his hand on the page and corrected me. Halfway through the book, Stella’s breath got heavier. I didn’t want to look to make sure she’d actually gone to sleep only because I didn’t want to accidentally wake her up.

When I finished, Raul said, “Again.” At times, I considered him quietly insistent. _Tia_ said he was bossy. And stubborn. But when he was curled up on my side and his eyes went big and round, like he couldn’t fathom any possibility other than the one that happened right then in his head, and there was this underlying message in everything he said, _I need you to do this for me,_ I couldn’t resist it. But I could still give him a hard time about it.

“Nope,” I whispered, “Your turn to read it to me.” I was unsure whether he read so much as recited something he had long ago memorized. 

He whispered back, “I’ll do the next one if you do it one more time.”

“I already did it one more time.”

“No,” he insisted. “You only did it once.”

I responded, “That’s right. I took a turn and now you take a turn.”

He reasoned back, “That’s not how it works and you shouldn’t argue with me. I know the rules.”

“Oh yeah? What are the rules.”

“The rules are…um…the rules are that when you come over you have to read at least twice before I have to read.”

This kid.

I was fairly certain that _Tia Sabina_ wouldn’t put up with this sort of logic. No, I was dead certain. The woman had perfected the art of delegation. And, it appeared, since Beto figured out how to get me to take over for him, she passed that art onto those she raised.

“I’m pretty sure that’s not one of _Tia’s_ rules.”

“No, it’s my rule.”

“Who says you get to make up the rules?”

“I do.”

“Hm. Not how it works, bud. But I’ll meet you halfway. You can choose whether you want to read the English parts or the Spanish parts.”

Raul played with his bottom lip, “Maybe you can read one word and I can read the next word.”

“Or, maybe you can read the whole thing,” I say.

Raul’s eyes flitted to the open book and then back up at me. “Or, maybe I can read the English part?”

“Or, maybe you can read the English part.”

“Yeah. What I said. So, should I go?”

We start reading through again. During my part, Raul stopped me, “Don’t leave, ‘kay?” 

“If I’m not here, I’ll make sure someone else is.”

He looked at me hard for several moments, nodded in agreement, and continued with the book. A few minutes later, his words got further and further apart. His voice got further and further away. Then he was quiet.

I closed my eyes.


	4. Chapter 4

Something roused me. 

I didn’t know what it was but I knew that it must have happened before the feet shuffled away on the carpet. My body felt heavy. There was a nuclear furnace the size of a small boy tucked into my shoulder and along my right side. There was more than one person giggling in the doorway. It was dark in here and light in the hallway so I could only see them in silhouette: a medium sized one with a short, slick haircut and a big one with big shoulders and long curls. The two of them looked at a small rectangle that was…oh, that little fucker took a picture of me sleeping.

The medium sized one backed up into the light of the hallway and before he took off towards the main part of the house, I could tell it was the new kid — Luis — and his shit-eating grin confirmed just how pleased with himself he was.

The other, who I had already suspected was Dante, padded into the room and bent into a squat, his face less than a foot from mine, his hair tucked behind an ear. But I was groggy, only half-way back from dreaming, and in that state where I though this beanbag I seemed to be stuck in was actually quicksand. And in this state, Dante and I were alone at either his place or mine, and he was leaning in to kiss me. I reached up to touch him and surprised when he captured my hand in his and teased, “Oh, I see. You’re Sleeping Beauty now?”

That woke me up.

Nope. I’m at _Tia’s_. That’s Raul at my side, Stella draped over my head, and a few more of the youngest children piled up on the lower part of the bunk bed behind Dante, one of whom just stretched and was getting into a more comfortable position. I didn’t say anything until she settled. Then, I whispered, “The sleeping part, maybe.”

He didn’t let go of my hand. “Why are you hiding in here?” 

“I’m not hiding,” I said, though he knew just as well as I did that I was, indeed, hiding. Everyone else, it seemed, could laugh and eat and joke and tell stories from noon until midnight. The longer it went on, the more energized they were. For me, this was hard work. I still wanted to be here — but in much smaller increments of time. Whether it was hiding or taking a break, I didn’t know. I flexed to show him The Runaway Piggy.“I was just reading this really excellent book.” 

“It looks riveting.”

“Oh, it is,” I replied. “There’s this pig. Gingerbread. He goes wild, man. Running all over the streets. You wouldn’t believe it. He does everything to keep from getting caught.”

“Yeah? What happens?”

“Some badass named Rosa gets him.”

His eyes twinkled with mirth, “Shame. I was starting to root for the poor piggy.”

“Tell me about it.”

We kept our voices under our breath so as not to wake those around us. The effect, though, of him whispering and laughing and of holding my hand while being so close and watching me with eyes of someone who wouldn’t mind being closer still, was unbelievably seductive. He inched toward me with clear intent. My lips parted and, damn, I wanted this to happen.

And it would have.

But someone cleared their throat. 

We both jerked back in surprise. I wasn’t sure about him but my heart was pounding. It was Cassie, Andi’s mom. “Honestly, I might have expected this from some of our teenagers but with grown ass men? Good lord, geta room.”

My face burned hot, though she probably couldn’t see it, and I was lucky to have found my voice, froggy as it was, and replied, “Uh, thanks…uh…sorry, Cassie. Hand me Lito, would you?” 

This beanbag was difficult to get out of under normal circumstances, never mind this particular one where I had one kid plastered to one side and another kid curled up around my head. Once Raul had his arms firmly wrapped around his stuffed elephant that he named Lito, I slid down, briefly waking Stella, who slid into the warm valley I vacated and snuggled into the blanket Cassie threw over the two of them. 

We were promptly shoo’d out.

I turned one way, Dante the other. Then I found myself against the wall with him pressed up against me, his hands hot on the back of my neck. “We were interrupted,” he said. Instantly, his lips were on mine. 

The kiss was…oh, god. 

This man. 

It made me feel like my skin was going to fall off. The only reason it didn’t probably had something to do with its own sheer will of staying attached on the chance that he’d continue doing whatever was that he was doing. Because to describe it would make it seem like there had been a million, billion kisses just like it from the beginning of humanity until now. But it wasn’t. It was so good I couldn’t stand it. It was so good, in fact, that it scared the fuck out of me. 

And when he pulled away, I knew that whatever look was on my face gave away something that I wasn’t sure I was ready for him to know. It wasn’t a little something, either. I stayed put, pinned against the wall, quiet, uncertain of …I didn’t know what…everything, maybe,because this wasn’t just some guy. Even though we’d hooked up before, if something happened now, it wouldn’t be with someone else, to get over someone else. It would mean something that — just the possibility of that — No, I was being ridiculous. 

He didn’t even _live_ here. 

Dante grabbed me by my shoulders, turned me around to steer me down the hall and through the washroom where a flight of stairs led to his old attic bedroom.

The same futon was there. The same dresser. The same lamps. The posters have gone, though, and the room was dressed up with new bedding and a coat of paint. It was nice, cozy, respectable. There was a beam of wood just offset from the center of the room and, under it, was the only place in the room where we could stand without having to bend.

So, that’s where we stood. It felt like we were there for ages as we looked at each other, his fingertips having captured the tips of mine, my stomach became more and more tense, until I finally said, “Is this us talking then?”

He walked behind me to kick a wedge under the door (it was the closest thing this house had to a lock). The floor was littered with more suitcases than he would need for a weekend and there was a stack of books and papers on the small coffee table that he was apparently using as a work surface.

Dante was in front of me again. He licked his bottom lip, smiled, and dipped his head.

“Dante,” I said at the exact time he said, “Micah.”

I shook my head to indicate, _you first_.

“Alright,” he started. Then he stopped. He looked over my shoulder. Then he looked back at me. He screwed up his face. Then he took a step closer. Close enough so that if he took a breath in at the same time that I took a breath in, our chests would touch. His hands were stuffed in his pockets. 

“Alright?” I asked. I was a master at handling strategically placed silences in a conversation. Unless that conversation was about me personally. Then, I was crap.

It seems he was, too.

He nodded. 

Then he shook his head and he laughed and came straight out and admitted, “I’m nervous.”

“ _You’re_ nervous. Between the two of us, _you_ are the one that’s nervous right now?” I joked.

“Don’t make fun.” He was serious and, quite honestly, pained. Maybe a little pathetic. Not that Dante could ever be truly pathetic. Just enough to make me crack open. Just enough to remember that there hasn’t been a day since I met this man that I haven’t been in love with him. The fact that whatever he’s feeling for me right now has rendered him speechless has made me ridiculously happy. And, yeah, I shouldn’t make fun, but I can’t help it.

For some reason, my voice has turned into a sing-song-y taunt that sounded completely foreign. “Really? The notorious  _Palhaço_ tells me to be serious. I can’t believe it. What’s today?” I check my non-existent watch and persist, “Ah. February 31 st . I should have known. Maybe I should check the sky to see if the pigs have started flying?”

And for once he was dour, “Are you having fun?” 

A nervous giggle spluttered up out of me and, though it wasn’t my intent to ever make fun of him, there was another force at play that I couldn’t stop. “Yes, I am having a lot of fun. This is a first, you know? I mean, I’ve never — not even once — ever seen you get nervous. You’re always the coolest guy ever. Me, though. I’m supposed to be the nervous one.”

“Right? And have I ever made fun of you about it? No. I haven’t.” he asked. His eyes flashed with hurt and frustration. I should have felt bad. It finally dawned on me, though, that his nervousness, vulnerability, and anything else he was feeling, it was all for me. I lit up so much and smiled so hard that my face hurt. 

All the while, Dante was so not caught up on any of this. He accused, “Why are you smiling right now?”

“Because,” I said quietly, and stepped closer so that I was right up against him, so that he could feel that even if I was laughing, I was also shaking, I was also hard for him, and that it _almost_ didn’t matter what he was going to say because no matter what the words were, it didn’t seem to me like the words were going to be able to mean what he needed to say. “I just … ” 

He rolled his eyes and softened his face, “You’re so smart, huh? Are you going to tell me what you think I’m going to say?” 

“Nope,” I said and pressed him back toward the futon so that it caught behind his knees, which I kicked open and stood between them. “Of all the things I want to put in your mouth right now, words aren’t one of them. So…talk. I’ll just do this while you do.” I leaned down and nuzzled his neck. 

He would start talking any second now.

Any…second.

Maybe?

“Dude, I’m waiting, you know? I thought,” I interrupted myself to suck on his bottom lip, “you had something you wanted to tell me.” 

He kissed me back. Then he kissed me again. He did it over and over and over with his hands running through my hair and around my neck and down my back. He continued kissing me until he pulled me on top of him and kissed me more. 

Honestly, how long have I fantasized about making out with this guy? For. Freaking. Ever. It was almost half-my-life ago when I caught him macking on…I didn’t even remember her name. I watched him rub against her and feel her up. When he tasted her, he acted like she was better than candy. Maybe she was. Probably. That was then.

I groaned when his thumbs ground into my nipples after he pinched them hard, “Jesus….” 

Suddenly he stopped. He wrapped his legs around mine. He rolled us and pinned me and as soon as he thought that I wasn’t able to move he said, “Micah, we were supposed to talk.”

“We _were_ talking and we were ridiculously ineffective at doing so.”

“Well, maybe I was trying to tell you that I want this to be more than a hook-up this time,” he confessed, looking flustered, sounding exasperated, his deep brown eyes moved in and out of focus and his lips, goddamn it, how the hell was I supposed to have any sort of reasonable conversation with him when I so recently had them on me.

I made a move to get free. He pinned me harder. “I did have something to say, you know. And maybe, I wanted it to be a bit romantic or something. Like I didn’t just want to fuck you again. I wanted…I want…”

“More?”

He nodded.

“Let me up,” I requested. 

He obliged. 

I scooted to the wall and propped a pillow behind me. Then I motioned for him to do the same. But he didn’t. 

He tossed his leg over mine and, sat back on his heels to straddle me. “I’m listening, really.” 

This scene was surreal. I did not imagine when I woke up this morning that before sunset, my fingertips would be tracing slow, lazy stripes along Dante’s thighs. Or how the heat of his crotch would permeate mine. Or how he would look at me when he said, “Micah, I wanted to talk so many times…”

Or how the fingers that had been moving in slow circles over his jeans traveled over his hips and over his belt to touch the hot, soft skin of his sides and to feel how that same skin would turn into goose pimples when they touched a certain spot in a certain way. Or how his breath would catch at exactly the same time that his eyes jerked toward mine to make sure I was still listening like I said I would.

“I couldn’t believe it when I heard you weren’t getting married…”

Or to watch him swallow hard while he debated between letting me continue or returning to this idea of actually talking, where he would talk and I would struggle to listen, no matter how much I wanted to. 

“And then you didn’t. I promised myself I would never miss another chance…”

Or to feel him his weight shift as he bent down again, as he wrapped his hands behind my neck and into my hair, to hear the sounds that come out of his throat, and then to attempt to continue speaking anyway. 

“Because I did, didn’t I? But you were so fucked up over Danny…” 

Or to remove one button at a time first on his shirt, then on his pants, peeling each away as he did the same to mine.

“Oh god, and you drive out of my skin, I get so crazy…”

Or to push off the wall so that he’s on his back again with me unceremoniously pulling his jeans off by the hem and sliding my hands down the sides of his tight black briefs, taking them with me down his legs, past his knees, over his ankles and dropping them off the bed the second they cleared his toes.

None of it. When I woke up this morning, that’s how much of this I expected. It was too much.

“I wanna know what it’s like if we’re really together. Don’t you? If we wake up together, you know? And have coffee and go surfing or teach class or do nothing. I want to dance with you in the living room while dinner is cooking in the kitchen.” 

While I kissed his neck and chest, I protested, “I don’t know how to dance.” 

He looked at me, surprised, and then lifted my shirt by its hem over my head before he flipped us over so that I was on my back. “I’ll teach you to dance. I’ll teach you everything I know.”

“Are you going to teach me how to fuck you?” I just took the easy way out and he knew it. I just hoped he knew that it wasn’t me saying I didn’t want all those things. More like, there wasn’t enough room him here for him and me and all the things he said.

“Yeah. And you’re going to teach me all the ways to fuck you. We’ll never walk again,” Dante growled and then I found myself on my stomach, with my pants making their way down my legs and my legs making their way off the bed and my knees making their way to the floor so that I was bent over the mattress with him right behind me. “Feel how much I want you?”

His dick rubbed along the crack of my ass. I put my hand back to feel him. Fuck, he was solid. And this was hot. And it was extraordinarily bad timing. It was Mother’s Day for god's sake. Everyone was here - the people I saw on Wednesdays and Saturdays for I can’t even think how many years. More than a decade. What if Tia heard us? Or the kids staying here?

“We need to be quiet, Dante,” I sounded alarmed but I wasn’t saying no. Why would I?

“Okay, we’ll be quiet. Shhh,” he said lightly, having clearly returned to a better mood. I hissed as he pressed in. There was plenty of lube but damn, it stung. He rubbed his hands over my ass and, after he pulled my shoulders back so that I was upright, over my stomach. All the while, he kissed my neck and pulsed in gently to get used to the feel of him, until the sting turned into something so so so much better. 

I collapsed back forward, arched back toward him, and relaxed. This made me feel drunk; _he_ made me feel drunk. I loved the feel of his legs planted inside mine and the feel of his hands as they pressed my ass open and then cupped the curve of my hip to bring us together with more force. I couldn’t think. It was just…

_Bam!_

The futon frame slid across the floor and smacked into the wall with a sound of something like thunder. 

We froze.

I might have I uttered, _oh shit_ and then a  _shhhhh_ before we strained to hear whether the people downstairs heard any disturbance.

We heard the music playing in the back yard. Listening harder, we could hear the distant sounds of video game gunfire and narration. There wasn’t anyone hollering up or knocking the ceiling with a broom. 

“Is this what you meant by _romantic_?” I quipped and looked over my shoulder at Dante, who answered by giving my ass a slap, his unvoiced laugh was followed by a muffled snicker.

“Do you want me to stop to go out and get you flowers?”

“Yeah,” I say flatly.

“Yeah?” He starts to pull out. 

“No!” I cried. “Don’t you dare.”

“But you said…”

“I know what I said. I seriously don’t give a shit about flowers right now.”

Cautiously, he started again. He gripped my hips tighter and rocked half in, half out, he skated over my p-spot as he did so and he knew it. I knew he knew it by the cocksure way he taunted me, “You sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“Sure, sure?” He nuzzled my ear, curled up against my back, and buried himself in me.

I released my head back and sighed, “So sure.” Then he started fucking me the way I knew he knew how to - not just with his dick but with his entire body. He’d start slow and intimate, he’d move in long, unhurried motion, barely separating his body from mine and then, he’d get closer, he’d wrap his arms and legs around me, he’d use those arms and legs to position me, his desire as clear as if he’d said, _now I want you like this._

Then he changed it up to bounce me. He used the spring of my ass to propel him back so all he had to do was thrust forward, _ugh…ugh…ugh_ , like the tip of his dick drove all the way through me to hit the back of my throat, and made my dick swing hard, its slap against my stomach in a syncopated rhythm to the one in my ass.

I planted my face into the mattress, clutched all the blankets and groaned from deep in my gut.

He pulled me back up to him and wrapped his arms around me. He kept going, kept pounding me, kept on and on and on until I didn’t know what I was saying. I might have said that I loved him. If I did, I may have been incoherent.

He lifted me up, his dick still in me, and threw us both on the bed. His body was long over mine, his weight almost entirely on me. “Oh god, baby,” he sighed, his breath hot in my ear, his hand pumped my dick.

The frame creaked in complaint. _Damn, someone was going to hear us_. Still, we didn’t stop. We were frenetic. “Dante, I’m close.” I was a ping-pong — arching back into him, thrusting forward into his hand, going faster and more uncontrolled until I vibrated, until I exploded from the base of my spine, out the top of my head, into his hand, and all over the mattress.

He came soon after and when he did, his entire body spasmed violently. Then he froze. His thighs pressed onto mine. His hands had wrapped themselves around my shoulders and gripped them, pulling them down, away from my ears. His forehead was firm on my neck. 

I couldn’t move. But I didn’t want to.

We stayed there to catch our breath. Before he moved again, he had my torso completely twisted to start kissing me again. He pulled out and turned me over and stayed on me like a blanket. “In a minute,” he murmured, “I’ll get up in a minute. Just give me…”

I hadn’t protested.

When he did move, it was to allow us to get cleaned up. Promptly, he got under the covers and took me with him.

We were side by side, our heads on two pillows, we faced each other. I was so happy. I didn’t want to speak.He was here, I was here, he wanted me, I wanted him, nothing stopped us from being here, like this. I didn’t want either of us to say anything that would take us out of this moment. But beyond the door were the lives each of us had created and those lives had us intersecting too rarely. 

Dante mused, “You know, you let me go on and on and on earlier. I just laid all my guts out for you and you didn’t say anything.”

“No? I’m pretty sure there was agreement somewhere in all that.”

“No. I think you were distracting me. I didn’t mind, clearly. But…Micah, what do you think?”

This was why he wasn’t supposed to say anything. Because then I’d have to be honest and it would ruin everything. “Dante, you don’t live here. How can this even work?”

He threaded his fingers into mine. It was nice but even if I wanted it — and, god, I did — I couldn’t picture my being happy with bits and pieces over the phone or the odd visit. And I couldn’t move. Nor did I want to. Everything I had was here. My people, my family, my work.

“Don’t worry about how. Just tell me.” 

“I can’t think about it. Not unless I know it can happen. I mean, Dante, you haven’t lived here for more than ten years. You come back but only once, maybe twice each year. It’s great to see you but…”

“What if I was here for more than the weekend?”

I perked up, “Wait…are you moving?”

“Well, maybe. Temporarily, anyway. I got accepted for two fellowships for the summer. One here. One in Brazil.”

“Which one do you want?”

“I want the one where you say you want to be with me. I’ll stay here. Then we can see if we’re good together.”

“Seriously? But what about what you want to do? You worked too hard to just come back to where you started.” I didn't know what I was saying. It was in complete opposition to my heart. 

“I’m not where I started and neither are you. Nor are you answering my question. Do you want to try this?”

“With you?”

“Yeah. With me.”

_Yes. Of course, I did. Say it, Micah. Just say it._ “What if it doesn’t work?”

“What if…what if…fuck what if,” He flipped to his back and looked at the ceiling. “It’s okay to say no, Micah. Just be honest. What do you want?”

_Dante. I want you. I’ve wanted you forever._ “You’re not fucking with me?” I asked.

Now he was irritated, “Why would I fuck with you? I don’t know how to say it any better but I thought…I don’t know…” He lifted the sheet up and started to get out of bed.

I got to my knees and pulled him back to the mattress, where he sat with his back to me and his arms crossed. I couldn’t see his face but breath was shallow and his back was rounded. “Don’t go, Dante. Please.”

“What do you mean by that?” he asked. “Are you asking me not to go back to the party or what?”

“I _want_ you to stay here. I _want_ you to choose the program where we— I don’t even know how to say this but this is what I’m worried about. Say your fellowship is over and you go back to the Bay Area. This feeling I have right now is only going to get worse. Because I’ll care more and you’ll go anyway. I don’t think I could handle it.”

“But you want me.”

“Of course, I want you. I’ve wanted you for so long I can hardly remember when I didn’t.”

He twisted to at me. One side of his mouth pointed up with lazy approval. “From when?”

“You first.” 

He leveled me with his gaze. Then, he turned and crawled toward me. Then over me so that we were back to lying down, me on my back and him propped on an elbow. “There was this time when I noticed this…” he said and pointed to the small mole that was just under the outside corner of my right eye, “and I thought it was interesting. Maybe I thought it was a little sexy but I couldn’t admit it yet.”

“When was that?”

“Back when you use to follow us around like a lost puppy.”

I was incredulous, in part because at the time, he had never called me out on how I followed him, dressed like him, tried to talk like him. I was so into him, too. I always hoped but never suspected. And there was no way in hell I was going to out myself to this group for a long-shot. No, not a long-shot. An impossible shot. “All the way back in high school?”

“Maybe. But I didn’t know what it was to be with a guy. I knew how people talked shit but I didn’t really think it was a thing that people did. I thought it was like that kidney story. You know the one?”

“No. How did we get to kidney stories?”

“It's that story they tell to freak people out. You know the one, right? You go out and meet someone hot. You go to their house or hotel and somehow you wake up in a bathtub full of ice water with a note explaining how they took one of your kidneys.”

“You thought having sex with a guy was an urban myth?” I was not going to laugh. I wasn’t. I was keeping a totally straight face.

“Stop smiling, okay? I didn’t know,” he explained, his voice was hard with defense and his eyes shifted away.

“Okay,” I said. And I stopped smiling. “So, when did you know?”

“I saw you at school. It was right after you got this scar.” It was the one on my upper lip after my mom lost it more than she ever had before. It was awful and, in fact, the last straw. I was done living with my family after that. “I didn’t want to let you out of my sight. Remember?”

I nodded. 'I remember."

“I wanted you to come live with us. If we couldn’t figure out another way, I was going to sneak you in and you’d live with me here. I woke up hot and bothered, like from a really dirty dream. And I realized it was about you. It freaked me out. Seriously, I thought there was something wrong with my head. Then before I had time to sort it out, you were with Danny.”

“All the way back then?”

“All the way back then.”

“And then that summer with Heather. Do you remember?”

He smiled so that the crease extend beyond his eyes. He captured the corner of his lip with his upper teeth. “Oh god. I couldn’t believe it. You know what I think of all the time?”

“Tell me.”

“When you looked up at me with your mouth wrapped around my dick. That was the hottest thing I’d ever seen.” Dante stretched out along side me. His eyes dilated. He pulled me closer and when he spoke, he was sad with nostalgia, “You came to stay with me before I started at school.”

“It was the longest I’d stayed from home.”

“Really? It was just a few weeks.”

“I swear.”

“Then I’d heard you’d moved back in with Danny and I figured that was it.”

“We never got back together after we broke up. He was with other people. Everyone, it felt like. Then, I got together with Jax. He got together with Richard. I broke up with Jax. He didn’t break up with Richard.”

“But you still live there?”

“Yeah, it’s home. I can walk to work. It’s comfortable. It’s cheap. Danny’s living with Richard so, it’s all mine.”

“You’re not hung up on him?”

“Nope.”

“Sure?”

“Sure.”

“How sure?”

“ _Sure_ sure.”

“So, if I choose to stay here, you want to try this?”

“Yes.”

“Really?”

“Completely. I want you to stay.”

He beamed. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

He pulled a face. “Are you always this difficult?”

“You kidding me? That was nothing.”

He wrapped his arms around me again and said, “Good to know what I’m getting into.”

“Any chance you can tell me what I’m getting into?”

“I could try but I’ve never done this before.”

“What? You’ve been with so many people. You’re telling me you don’t know what kind of boyfriend you are?”

“Boyfriend?” he asked. One of his eyebrows raised in an arch at the word _boyfriend_ and I realized I might have exaggerated the starting state of our relationship. What should I have said? Dating? Lovers? I never knew what to say. Then he saved me. “But I’ve never been _Micah’s_ boyfriend before. ”

We were going to be boyfriends. Dante Te Waero wanted to be my boyfriend. Holy shit. “It’s hard work,” I told him.

He examines me seriously and with wide open eyes. “Is it worth it? I’ve heard he gives a good blowjob…”

“Ha, you’re funny - shut up.”

He poked my side. “Make me…”

“I will.”

“I don’t think…” for some reason, he couldn’t speak. Must have had something to do with the way I tackled him. 

Hours later, after we decided it would be easier to show up ignorant than to have read all the text messages that piled up during our absence, we made it downstairs and returned to the party.

It looked like we were getting away with it until _Tia_ cornered us. The first thing she said was nice, “Okay. I approve. You boys will have to take care of each other.  _Boa?_ ” 

The second thing was not quite as nice, “Now, we’ve got that settled. You’ve got less than a day to put a new bookshelf in that room because I’m not going to be the one to correct all those little ears who were making stories up about what you were building up there. Got it?”

He answered, “Got it.”

“And you’re going to keep your pants on and the door open while you do it. You understand?”

I answered, “We understand.”

“And Raul wants to help paint so you let him.”

We both answered, “Okay.”

After she left, Dante looked at me and asked, “Do you know how to build a bookshelf?”

I shook my head, “Never built one in my life.”

“How hard can it be?”

I started laughing. We had no clue what we were doing but yeah, okay. This could work. 

Maybe.

**Author's Note:**

> Owned by Alex de Morra


End file.
